


will you leave the light on?

by Wisteria_Leigh



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Catholic Guilt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exactly 1000 words, Grief/Mourning, M/M, One Shot, have I ever written anything so short in my life?, no I have not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 15:02:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisteria_Leigh/pseuds/Wisteria_Leigh
Summary: Sunset fades into twilight. Twilight fades into night.Ronan doesn’t come home.





	will you leave the light on?

It’s too much all at once. 

An argument with Gansey. Texts from Declan questioning Ronan’s life’s trajectory. Night terrors clawing at the edges of his dreams. A sermon at church that emphasized “man and _ wife”. _The end of summer quickly approaching, Adam’s departure cresting over the horizon. Finding a shoebox in the closet full of photos of him and Aurora with swirling handwritten notes on the back of each one. 

It’s scraping and clawing just beneath his skin: rage and grief and fear and a million other things barely restrained, boiling right at the rim and hissing into the fire that just keeps building and building and building. 

So when Adam asks him to wait one minute more, that he’s close to finishing something and then he’s all his, it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t in a mean way, that Adam obviously meant no harm in his matter-of-fact tone, that this important scholarship paperwork needs to be postmarked by Friday. It doesn’t matter that this moment, on any other day, in any other context, wouldn’t have ignited the fuse. Because today, it’s the cherry on top of a mountain of shit, the flutter of a butterfly's wing that turns into a hurricane, the single pinecone that starts an avalanche. 

Ronan is shouting, and Adam is staring at him like he’s grown five rabid heads, and Ronan throws a mug across the kitchen so the cracking porcelain can cut through the angry static buzzing in his head and smothering all other thoughts. He storms from the house, screen door slamming shut behind him, and as Adam fumbles onto the porch, shoeless and speechless, Ronan speeds away. 

  


####

  


Adam understands. He understands feelings that turn into anger because they’re too numerous to feel individually all at once. He knows all about needing to be alone, about pain so big and sharp that you have to run away so it can’t cut anyone else. 

Still, as he sweeps up ceramic shards and moves his work so he can keep watch out the front window and listens carefully for engines revving and the crunch of gravel beneath tires that he knows aren’t coming any time soon, he feels the sting of where it sliced through his core, when Ronan pushed him away. 

  


####

  


It’s evening. Fireflies bobble through the fields and twinkle in the treeline. Adam feeds the animals, rounds them all up for bed and makes sure the barns are secure. He tries texting Ronan. The phone pings back, still plugged into the charger upstairs, forgotten as always. 

So Adam waits. Sitting on the porch steps, pulling the string of his hoodie and twisting it around his finger. Tapping his foot in a restless, uneven rhythm.

Ronan doesn’t come home. 

Sunset fades into twilight. Twilight fades into night. 

Ronan doesn’t come home. 

The crescent moon hangs high in the sky. 

Ronan doesn’t come home. 

Adam leaves the porch light on, and sleeps alone in their bed. 

  


######

  


The sun is just barely above the horizon when Ronan’s alarm goes off. Adam is still alone. He pulls a flannel over his shirt and groggily pulls on a pair of jeans and shoves his sneakers on his feet. Animals don’t care if Ronan is here or not; they’re on a schedule, a schedule that Adam intends to keep. 

He’s brewing coffee when, beneath the chorus of songbirds and cicada whirrs and crowing roosters, an engine revs. Distant, but coming closer. 

He forgets about the coffee. He’s suddenly very, _ very _awake. 

The BMW pulls, carefully, into its spot along the drive. The car turns off.

Adam stops short of the porch steps. 

It’s a long, uneasy moment before the door opens. Slowly. A hand holds onto the top, and then Ronan pulls himself up from the driver’s seat. And he’s...tired, obviously, clearly hasn’t slept, but also looks..._ afraid. _Cowering, almost, in the brilliant light of the morning sun. He shuts the door, almost as an afterthought, and he takes a deep breath, and then, at last, begins the long walk up the drive, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders tense, staring at the ground as he takes slow, deliberate steps. A sinner, dragging himself to confession, resigned to whatever punishment God has prepared for his unworthy soul. 

Adam can’t stand it. 

He leaps down the porch steps and runs. Crashes into Ronan, meets him halfway, wraps his arms around Ronan’s waist, and holds him as tight as he can. 

Ronan...doesn't _ understand. _ He _ left _ him. He threw a mug and yelled at him without reason and treated him like _ shit _ because he didn’t know what else to do. Adam should be shouting, punching, sending him packing, icing him out, breaking the fuck up with him because that’s what Ronan _ deserves _. 

But Adam doesn’t let him go. He keeps his arms wrapped tight around him, holding him certainty until Ronan finally throws his arms around his shoulders and buries his face in his neck, desperately trying to swallow the lump in his throat that catches his words as he whispers, “I’m sorry.” 

And Adam holds him tighter, a message in a language that Ronan understands:_ I was never mad; you’re already forgiven; I love you, even right now, when you think you least deserve it; I will always leave the light on for you. _

He pulls away to kiss Ronan’s neck and cheek and forehead and lips, and to cradle Ronan’s face in his hands. He brushes a stray tear from Ronan’s cheek. Gives Ronan a small smile that Ronan can’t help but to reciprocate, as Ronan’s forehead rests against his. 

The sun is up in earnest, cutting shadows out of tree tops and slicing through the early morning haze. 

“I’ll feed the animals and then we’ll talk, okay?” Adam says, and Ronan nods. Adam leaves one more kiss on his forehead. He takes his hand and Ronan kisses each of his knuckles. The only reparation Adam will allow - for now, at least. 

Together, they turn off the porch light.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [ Maggie Rogers' "Light On" ](https://open.spotify.com/track/6UnCGAEmrbGIOSmGRZQ1M2?si=VJVxgZO0Qrmqr52X_L5l-g). Just because I like the song, not because I think it's a Pynch song. Although, I guess I've now turned it into a Pynch song?? Whatever, I'm tired, do with this what you will.


End file.
